Monday, January 18, 2016

I hear from a friend (while conversing) that some areas in Scotland and Scandinavia have bought out their commercial fishing industries and just allow sport fishing now. The fisheries were getting fished out. He says it's a win win situation all around. The ocean isn't being as depleted, but the local economies are even making more money from tourism than they did from commercial fishing before. Just cater to wealthy sport fishing folks who also stay in local hotels and so forth. Win win?

Then I thought, someone is probably losing. It can't be all win win. How about the multitudes of folks needing to eat the fish that commercial fishing produces? What will they eat? Then I thought of the answer before asking the question.

Fish farming. The multitudes of folks, who buy fish at the supermarket, can rely on fish from fish farms. I know that fish farming has it's drawbacks also.

My friend's response was, "or there should be more gay people." Yes, he knows me and my thoughts on population growth. Ultimately, less people needing to eat is the best way to protect the oceans. Less people having too many children at least.

Sunday, January 17, 2016

A few days ago, a friend was talking about all the things in the supermarket that have some form of corn in them. Cereals, corn syrup and so forth.

I mentioned that corn is abundant, cheap and easy to work with. Then I said that it's abundance leads to the "cornucopia" which unfolds whenever one walks into a supermarket. My friend started laughing and pointed out how the word "corn" is in cornucopia. I hadn't thought of that. Quite the coincidence.

On other related thoughts, one sees how much of this country is planted in cornfields when one travels by bicycle. Also I remember being impressed walking into supermarkets when I was a child and that was when they stocked around 3 or 4 thousand items. I hear that today's big markets stock around 30 thousand items. Quite the cornucopia. I don't necessarily think it's bad. Just something to behold. People tend to take things for granted.

Like an non jaded child that hasn't always "been there, done that," my eyes were big with amazement when I walked into the Whole Foods of Redmond, WA. a couple of years ago.

We're soon to get a Whole Foods here in Bellingham. Maybe not as big as that one tho. Also corn might be less of a basis for their cornucopia.

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Now that we have basically confirmed the existence of the Higgs Field, we find that it's intensity is tuned just right for the existence of our kind of universe. It's a mystery as to how that kind of unlikely "field strength" can exist; as if it was made just for our kind of universe.

At the Large Hadron Collider, scientists have been looking for some new physics, or theories like Super Symmetry to help explain how the Higgs Field has been tuned so ideally for this type of universe. Seems more logical that the Higgs field would either not exist at all, or it would be way too strong. In either case, atoms, stars and planets could not form. Instead, the Higgs field is tuned precisely the way we need it.

At Hadron, we've only been looking with full power since Spring 2015, but so far we aren't seeing signs of Super Symmetry or the new physics. The jury is still out as we've just barely started looking at full power, but what happens if we can't find these results? This TED Talk suggests the possibility of a dead end to our attempts at explaining these things. A dead end in physics.

Wow.

Personally, I would be skeptical that we've reached the end of physics. I remember my dad saying (when I was a kid) that many physicists thought all the important laws of physics had been discovered by 1900. They thought physics could be a dead science. The clockwork of Isac Newton's laws had been worked out by then.

Dead end? Well, that was just before the world of physics was turned upside down by Einstein. Turned upside down by Einstein and also Quanta Mechanics. No one is now saying that 1900 was a dead end for physics.

Even if we don't find Super Symmetry, or some other new physics to explain the "just right" mysteries in our current physics, I'd guess that someone will still think up a new pathway forward.

When science gets stumped, theologians often jump in to say it's some inexplicable creator; like a god or something. Did something intend it to be that way so creatures like us could exist? As these claims abound, scientists continue to move forward with more explanations of seemingly unintentional, natural mechanisms and the mystery retreats still farther.

I would think no one knows how much of our universe is intentional, or how much is just happening with no intent. We do know that we, human beings, have intent. We have self awareness and something we call consciousness. We are a part of this universe, at least, tho maybe just a tiny part. Our consciousness and intents exists in what we call our minds, but our brains are also being explained in more scientific, or somewhat mechanical ways. Neurons firing and so forth.

Some of this may depend on perspective. If one were at the level of a neuron, inside the brain, one might not see any mind or the concept of intent. On the other hand, one does see intelligence (usually at least) when meeting the whole person for lunch and enjoying their company. Maybe the universe is similar? Mechanical, at many levels, but intentional, depending on one's perspective.

Theological type speculation wasn't mentioned in this TED Talk. This last note is just my own late night musings as I know people will be thinking about this as they contemplate the things that make scientists scratch their heads in bewilderment.